Slave's Gamble

by Jay Stonesmith

  "I never get to do anything except train." She kicked at a rotting branch on the forest floor. "The only one of the Ends I've ever seen is the one we ended up in when we were being chased by the Kelsharlans."

  They walked back to the line. Ordella picked up her bow and slid an arrow from her quiver. She positioned it, drew back the string and loosed it at the target. It slammed into the very center of the bale.

  Ordella smiled at Hob. "Look at that. Dead center. Surely I'm ready to man one of the Ends."

  Hob pulled a face. "That was just a lucky shot." He paused, a serious look passing across his face. "You shouldn't be so impatient. You've only been here a couple of months, and you've already got a bow and your archer's clothes."

  Ordella ran her hands over her supple leather tunic and wiggled her toes against the inside of her boots. It still felt strange having her feet covered.

  She picked at the callouses on the fingertips of her draw-hand. Had it really been only eight weeks since they'd arrived at Oakhaven?

  Hob brought an arrow to his bow and turned to face the target.

  "I had to wait years to get my hands on a bow, and it was months after that when I first got to go out of the village as an Owl."

  He fired his arrow. Ordella tracked its flight, and it thunked into the bail directly on the line between red and yellow.

  Hob kicked at the ground.

  "Bollocks," he said.

  Ordella smiled, and Hob scowled at her theatrically.

  She placed another arrow to her bowstring and stepped up to the mark.

  "What was it like in the Warren?" Hob said.

  Ordella let her bow drop to her side. She shuffled her feet and looked down at the floor.

  "You don't have to answer," Hob said. "If it's too hard, I mean..."

  "No, it's alright. I just wasn't expecting the question." She turned towards him. "I wasn't actually in the Warren itself. At least not when the Rabbits were there."

  She looked at her hands. They were dirty, but not in the same way they used to be. Mud and stains from tree sap had replaced the blood that had perpetually caked her fingernails and filled the lines around her knuckles.

  "I was part of one of the teams who scrubbed the filth from the chambers after the bodies had been hauled away," she said. "We were separated from the others. We sometimes used to hear the Rabbits, though, through the doors, shouting and crying out, but I never laid eyes on one in all the years I was there."

  "My father was a Rabbit," he said. "At least, that's what Flynn said would have come of him after the Kelsharlans took him."

  Ordella touched his arm with her hand. She imagined an adult version of her friend, with sword in hand, frantically fighting to stay alive as, high above, the crowd urged him on. In the end, he would fall, as all Rabbits did, blood from his wounds spilling over the tiles and seeping into the grime between them. Just another stain for the scrubbers' brushes and lye.

  "I'm so sorry," she said.

  Hob flinched. His cheeks turned rosy and he looked down, but he allowed her hand to remain where it was. He sniffed.

  "I can't remember him at all. I was only a baby when my mother brought me here."

  "Your mother? I didn't know she was at Oakhaven, too."

  Hob shook his head. "She died three winters ago. She slipped carrying a load of logs. Cracked her head and never woke up." He raised his hands to his eyes.

  Ordella put her arm around him. He pulled away at first then stopped and leaned in closer.

  "I know what it's like to lose your parents," she said. "My father died fighting the Kelsharlans, and my mother was killed soon after when they attacked Rittle, our village. We didn't stand a chance. Most of the villagers were killed, and those that survived were rounded-up and taken to the Warren. That's how I ended up in there with my grandmother."

  A lump was forming at the back of her throat. She could still hear her grandmother's gentle voice telling her that she wasn't going to leave her side, as the soldiers lined them up and marched them away from the only home she'd ever known.

  Ordella swallowed back her tears and pulled away from Hob. She reached into a pocket in the folds of her new green tunic and held up the carved wooden item Merisca had given her when they'd first arrived at Oakhaven.

  "This," she said, "used to belong to my father."

  Hob reached forwards and ran his fingers over the markings.

  "What is it?" he said. "I've never seen anything like it. Is it some type of pendant?"

  He took it from Ordella, holding it close to his face.

  "Yes, look. You'd put the cord through there." He pointed to the hole at the object's thickest end.

  Ordella nodded. Perhaps he was right, but she couldn't recall her father ever wearing it.

  "You should get a necklace for it," said Hob. He passed the pendant back to Ordella. "I'm sure Todd could braid something fancy for you. A thing like that shouldn't be hidden away in a pocket. It would suit you." His face reddened once more and he turned away and studied the trees.

  Ordella returned the pendant to her pocket.

  "Let's have a bit of a contest shall we," she said, pointing at the target. "One arrow each, closest to the heart wins."

  He nodded, smiling.

  "Prepare yourself for defeat, Della," he said as she walked to the target to retrieve their arrows.

  She plucked the feathered shafts out of the bale.

  "Not a chance."

  Hob raised his bow and breathed in through his nose. He loosed the arrow, and Ordella turned her head, following its path to the target. It pierced the red circle in the middle of the bail, slightly to the right of dead center. He let the bow fall to his side and smiled at her.

  "Beat that!" he said. He performed a little hop and a skip as he moved away from the line they'd drawn in the soil.

  Ordella cuffed him on his head as he passed.

  "Idiot," she said.

  She nocked an arrow and stepped forwards. Bringing the bow up level with the target, she narrowed her eyes.

  A loud crashing noise from the forest behind her stopped her before she could fire. She whirled around, the arrow still on her bowstring, scanning the trees for movement.

  "What was that?" she said.

  Hob shrugged, his eyes fixed on the woods.

  "Perhaps it was—"

  A thin man with a shock of moldy straw hair burst out of the undergrowth, his arms flailing and his eyes wide.

  "Don't shoot," said Hob. "It's just Dunder."

  The man threw himself at their feet. He scrabbled around in the dirt and reached for Ordella's booted ankles. She took a step back, half watching the man and half peering into the trees. What in all Ellusia was he running from?

  Hob crouched down next to Dunder and spoke quietly into his ear. "What is it?" he said. "What's out there?"

  "The caves," Dunder replied.

  His blue eyes were wild, and his tongue flicked in and out of his crusty mouth.

  "The caves, the caves, the cavey caves." He delivered his words as if singing the lines of a children's rhyme. His voice was croaky but oddly melodic, completely at odds with his disheveled appearance.

  Ordella ducked down next to Hob and tried to gain Dunder's attention. A cloying rancid smell like old butter filled her nose whenever he flailed about. She brought her hand up to her face.

  "What about the caves? What did you see?"

  Dunder turned his head then blinked slowly.

  "Tooth and claw," he squawked. "Toothy tooth and clawy claw, that is what I sawy saw." He clicked his dirty fingers as he spoke.

  Ordella rolled her eyes. The man was truly mad. She turned to Hob. "Any ideas?"

  Hob put his hand to his chin. "Tooth and claw," he said. "Tooth and claw."

  Dunder was now sitting on the floor twisting in his hands the hem of his soiled tunic. Hob shuffled closer to him. "Did you see a fisher cat," he said, "or perhaps a sleat?"

  Dunder shook his head, turning it as far as it wou
ld go one way before doing the same in the other direction and then back again.

  "No," he said. "No, no, no, no! Not a small cat." He leaped onto all fours and Ordella hopped back out of his way.

  Prowling in tight circles in front of them, Dunder snarled and snapped his jaw like a rabid dog. He let out a guttural roar, strands of spittle dripping from his blackened teeth.

  A dark look came over Hob's face.

  "A rotclaw?" he said. "You saw one? In Oakhaven?"

  Dunder grinned and nodded his head vigorously.

  "Yessss!" he said. "Rotclaws in the cavey caves."

  Sixteen

  Jereth grabbed Dunder by the worn collar of his tunic and ushered him into the same wooden building where Ordella had first met Flynn and Lera. He thrust the madman into the space in front of the large table upon which Flynn was sitting with his legs dangling off the edge.

  "Tell him what you saw," Jereth said, "I want him to hear it from you."

  Ordella followed them into the room, and Hob came in last, closing the wooden door behind him.

  Dunder writhed around on the planked floor like a wounded animal. Flynn hopped off the table and knelt down beside him.

  "It's alright, Dunder. It's alright. You're not in any trouble." He put his hand on the man's head. "It's just that I really need to know what you told Dorley and Ordella up in the forest." Flynn's normally loud voice was now calm and soothing, and Dunder stopped cavorting and sat down in front of him, cross-legged, as if charmed by Flynn's tone.

  "Well done," Flynn said. "Now I understand you saw some rotclaws by the caves. It this true?"

  Dunder nodded enthusiastically, his chin banging against his chest.

  "Thank you," Flynn said quickly before Dunder could lose his train of thought. "Now I need you to think carefully about this next one." He moved his hand from the top of Dunder's head to his chin, tilting the man's grubby face and looking directly into his blue eyes. "How many rotclaws did you see?"

  Dunder leaped to his feet and started to dance a jig, his feet moving this way and that to the beat of a drummer that only he could hear. Flynn backed away, and Jereth let out a sigh, burying his face in his hands.

  "I see. I see, I see," Dunder sang. He spun around, his feet tapping out a complex rhythm against the boards. "I see, I see three. I see three. Then I flee." He had started to clap his hands. "If I flee, they won't eat me. They won't eat me 'cause I flee."

  Flynn reached out and clutched him by the shoulders, stopping him mid-twirl.

  "So there were three of them?"

  "Yesss!" the madman said. He stretched his mouth wide and bared his rotten teeth in a grin. "Yessss!"

  Flynn screwed up his nose and coughed, but didn't relinquish his hold.

  "And did you see them go into the caves, or were they just nearby?"

  "Nearby, nearby, nearby, nearby, nearby, nearby." Dunder bobbed his head from side to side. "Nearby, nearby, nearby, hereby, hereby, hereby. Here, Boy! Here, Boy! Here, Boy!"

  He pulled away from Flynn's grasp and started to bound around on his hands and feet, sniffing the floor and barking like a hound.

  Hob was trying to stifle a laugh, and Ordella made sure she didn't catch his eye. She turned away, biting her lip.

  Flynn glanced at Jereth, and the bowman nodded.

  "You've been a great help to us today," Flynn said.

  Dunder looked up at him, his head cocked to one side and his tongue lolling out over his bottom lip. He panted and went back to sniffing the floor, his nose grinding against the timber.

  "You may go now," Flynn said.

  Hob opened the door, and Jereth ushered Dunder out onto the platform in the direction of the steps, closing the door behind him.

  Jereth returned to the middle of the room.

  "I think we've got to assume that the rotclaws will have entered the caves by now." He clasped his hands together. "I've ordered everyone back to the village, so I don't believe anyone's in immediate danger, but we can't risk them taking the caves for their lair over winter."

  Flynn nodded, stroking his thick copper beard. "We'll need to send a group to hunt them. The sooner we can flush them out, the better. At least they won't be able to run too far from us in the caves."

  "Yes, but we won't be able to run from them either if things take a turn for the worse," Jereth said. He turned to Hob.

  "Go and find Tal or Pip. Tell them to fetch me Dale from Lake End. After you've done that, I need you to go and find Garvan for me. He's not on duty today, so he'll be around the village somewhere."

  Hob pushed past Ordella, flung open the door and dashed to the stairs. He bounded down the first three before he was lost from view behind the huge tree trunk around which the steps had been built.

  "A small group will be best," Jereth said.

  "I agree," Flynn said. "I will, of course, be joining you." He looked at Jereth, his eyes sparkling in the lantern light as if daring the bowman to contradict him.

  Jereth shook his head. "Your place is here, by Lera's side. She needs you more than ever now. If something were to happen—"

  Flynn cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  "Nonsense. It will be fine, I assure you. I am one of the best archers in Oakhaven, am I not?"

  Jereth nodded.

  "Well then. That settles it."

  "With respect, I still don't think it's a good idea. You are much more to Oakhaven than a bowman. A leader must be alive in order to lead."

  "And a leader should not expect others to do things he's not prepared to do himself." He clapped his arm around Jereth's shoulder. "Let's not fall out about this, old friend. I have made up my mind, and that's all there is to it."

  Jereth bowed his head. "As you wish," he said. "As you wish."

  Flynn gave him another slap on the back then strode out of the room.

  Jereth watched him go, then turned to Ordella.

  "What do you need me to do? Who do you need me to fetch?" she asked. Finally, she might get to do something other than train.

  "I don't need you to bring me anyone," he said.

  She tried to keep the disappointment from her face. It wasn't fair. Her lip started to quiver. She was much faster than Hob, and he'd been trusted to help.

  "I don't need you to bring me anyone, Ordella," Jereth said, "because I want you to be part of the group that hunts the rotclaws."

  Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened. She swallowed.

  "That's not what I meant," she said. "I want to help, but I'm not ready for this. It's far too dangerous." Ordella chewed on her bottom lip. "It's too important."

  She'd never complain about training again if he'd just allow her to remain behind.

  Jereth smiled. "I thought this is what you wanted. You've been asking to do more. Well, here's your chance."

  "It's not that I'm not grateful. I am. I just don't think I'm ready. I'm just not good enough."

  "Is that honestly how you feel, Ordella?" He studied her face. "If it is, then you should stay here. But know this. I'm not in the habit of putting people's lives in jeopardy just to make a point. I wouldn't have asked you to do this if I didn't think you were up to the task." He scratched his short beard. "It's normal to be nervous. You'd be a fool if you weren't."

  Ordella took a deep breath and ran a shaky hand through her tangled hair.

  I can do this.

  She looked at him and nodded.

  "If you think I'm ready, then I'm ready," she said.

  "Glad to hear it.”

  Jereth walked over to the door and held it open for her. "Now come and help me gather our supplies."

  Seventeen

  Standing at the foot of the large sanctuary oak at the edge of the village, Ordella strapped on her leather bracer and adjusted her quiver full of arrows.

  This end of Oakhaven was usually bustling with people, but now, they were the only ones there, the others having been instructed to stay to village's eastern fringes. It was eerily quiet, and even the songs
of the treefinches in the branches above her head sounded subdued.

  Jereth checked the contents of his pack. Seemingly satisfied, he buckled it closed and slung it over his shoulders. Two torches were by his feet, along with his bow and a full quiver of arrows.

  "It's a fine day to go hunting rotclaws."

  A loud voice boomed from behind them. Ordella turned her head to the sound. It was Flynn, striding towards them from the village. He was flanked by two men who she'd seen before, but had never spoken to. The man on Flynn's right, with thick dark hair and a scar on his forehead, was called Dale. She'd heard Much talk about him. The other man also had dark hair, but it was cropped much closer than Dale's. He was shorter than his companions, too. Stout, but powerful. She didn't know his name.

  Jereth nodded to them and gestured for them to form a circle around him. Flynn clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, and a slight smile crept across Jereth's lips. It was gone in a flash, his face serious again when he turned to address them.

  "Garvan." Jereth looked at the shorter man, then turned to the other. "Dale. This is Ordella." He pointed to her and a tingling heat spread up her neck and onto her face. Dale stared at her, and Garvan raised his eyebrows and grinned.

  "She might not look much like an archer," Jereth said, "but don't be deceived. Give her another year and she'll be out shooting all of you." Her face burned hotter, and she focused on her feet. "That said," Jereth continued, "she is inexperienced, so I'm counting on the rest of you to do the heavy lifting."

  Dale and Flynn nodded and Garvan cracked his knuckles and then started to wiggle his hands into a pair of dark brown leather gloves.

  "What do you know about rotclaws?" Jereth asked.

  "Nasty, vicious buggers," Flynn said, speaking not so much to Jereth, but to the others. "Bigger and stronger than forest lions, and much more dangerous."

  Jereth nodded.

  "They have thick hides. So thick that arrows won't always penetrate it," he said. "They have large eyes, though, and they reflect light just like the eyes of a wildcat. We'll be able to see their eyes in the torchlight, and these are what we must aim for. Don't waste arrows on the other parts of their bodies, unless you have no other choice."